Tunbridge Wells Town Hall is a municipal building in Mount Pleasant Road,

Royal Tunbridge Wells Royal Tunbridge Wells is a town in Kent, England, southeast of central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the High Weald, whose sandstone geology is exemplified by the rock formation High Rocks. ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, England. The town hall, which is the headquarters of

Tunbridge Wells Borough Council Tunbridge may refer to the following places: * Tunbridge, Illinois, United States * Tunbridge, North Dakota, see Locations in the United States with an English name#North Dakota * Tunbridge, Tasmania, Australia * Tunbridge, Vermont, United States ...

, is a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

History

The first town hall was a market hall designed by

Decimus Burton Decimus Burton (30 September 1800 – 14 December 1881) was one of the foremost English architects and landscapers of the 19th century. He was the foremost Victorian architect in the Roman revival, Greek revival, Georgian neoclassical and Reg ...

in the neoclassical style and built as part of John Ward's Calverley Park estate in 1829. After the market hall proved to be a commercial failure, the building was acquired by the newly-appointed town commissioners and converted for municipal use in 1841. Following population growth in the late 19th century, largely associated with the town's development as a residential area, Tunbridge Wells became a

municipal borough Municipal boroughs were a type of local government district which existed in England and Wales between 1835 and 1974, in Northern Ireland from 1840 to 1973 and in the Republic of Ireland from 1840 to 2002. Broadly similar structures existed in S ...

in 1888. The new corporation acquired a large site to the east of Mount Pleasant Road for the purposes of the development of a civic complex in 1895. The first development was a Technical and Art School (now the Adult Education Centre) which was completed in 1902. A war memorial, which was designed by

Stanley Nicholson Babb Stanley Nicholson Babb, FRBS (1874–1957), also known as S. Nicholson Babb and Nicholson Babb, was a British sculptor. Among his most important works are the memorial to Robert Falcon Scott and his companions in St Paul's Cathedral, London, the G ...

, was unveiled by Colonel Henry Charles Hardinge, 3rd Viscount Hardinge on 11 February 1923. Following a design competition assessed by

Ernest Berry Webber Ernest Berry Webber, (29 April 1896 – 19 December 1963)''England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858–1995'', p. 130. was an English architect, surveyor and town planner best known for his design ...

, a team consisting of Sir Percy Thomas and Ernest Prestwich was chosen as the architect for the main scheme in November 1934. Construction work began with the demolition of the properties in Calverley Place. The foundation stone for the new complex was laid by the mayor, Councillor Charles Hillman, on 18 May 1938. The new buildings were designed in the Neo-Georgian style and built in red brick with

Portland stone Portland stone is a limestone from the Tithonian stage of the Jurassic period quarried on the Isle of Portland, Dorset. The quarries are cut in beds of white-grey limestone separated by chert beds. It has been used extensively as a building sto ...

dressings: the police station and the assembly hall were officially opened by the Marchioness Camden (whose husband was the Lord Lieutenant of Kent) in 1939 and the town hall itself was officially opened by the mayor, Alderman Charles Westbrook, in 1941. A library and museum building was added to the north of the town hall in 1952. The design for the town hall involved a symmetrical corner section of three bays at the junction of Mount Pleasant Road and Crescent Road. The corner section featured a doorway with a stone surround at the base of a tall round-headed recessed window flanked by full-height brick

pilaster In classical architecture Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the ...

s supporting an

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; from it, architrave "chief beam", also called an epistyle; from Greek ἐπίστυλον ''epistylon'' "door frame") is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can ...

bearing the borough

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central ele ...

. A western wing extended for twelve bays along Mount Pleasant Road while the southern wing extended for seven bays along Crescent Road. The design for the Assembly Hall Theatre, built to the east of the town hall, involved a symmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto Crescent Road with the central section of three bays slightly projected forward. It featured five doorways with a canopy above the central three doorways; above the canopy were three tall windows with carved stone reliefs in the heads of the windows: the reliefs depicted dance, drama and music and were sculpted by Gilbert Seale and Sons of

Camberwell Camberwell () is a district of South London, England, in the London Borough of Southwark, southeast of Charing Cross. Camberwell was first a village associated with the church of St Giles and a common of which Goose Green is a remnant. This e ...

. The police station and magistrates court, built to the east of the assembly hall, featured an arched doorway with a relief depicting the administration of justice in the tympanum. Internally, the principal rooms in the complex were the council chamber and the mayor's parlour in the town hall and the main auditorium in the assembly hall. The building continued to serve as the headquarters of Tunbridge Wells Corporation for much of the 20th century and remained the local seat of government when the enlarged

was formed in 1974. In 1986

Princess Margaret Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, (Margaret Rose; 21 August 1930 – 9 February 2002) was the younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and the younger sister and only sibling of Queen Elizabeth ...

visited the attendance hall to see a performance of the musical '' Calamity Jane'', which was held to raise funds for new medical equipment for the

Kent and Sussex Hospital The Kent and Sussex Hospital was a district general hospital located on Mount Ephraim in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England serving the West Kent and East Sussex areas. It was managed by the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust until it clos ...

. A proposal to build new council offices as well as a new 1,200-seat theatre in Calverley Grounds, leaving the existing town hall complex redundant, was abandoned following a change in political leadership in September 2019.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1941 City and town halls in Kent Buildings and structures in Royal Tunbridge Wells Grade II listed buildings in Kent